Dynamic collection and reporting of customer premises context information in response to predicted emergency event

ABSTRACT

A method and system for collecting context information in response to prediction of an emergency event. A cloud-based computing system could determine that an emergency event is predicted to impact a customer premises at an upcoming time. Responsive to that determination, and before the upcoming time, the cloud-based computing system could then cause or more on-premises computing devices at the customer premises to collect and report context information, such as a count of people present at the customer premises and/or an operational state of one or more utilities or other systems at the customer premises, that may assist in responding to the emergency event. Further, the cloud-based computing system could select a given such device at the customer premises to function as a coordinating device to work with one or more other devices at the customer premises to collect and report the context information.

SUMMARY

Modern customer premises, such as homes, hotels, or offices, areincreasingly equipped with many devices that are configured to engage ininternet communications. These devices may range from traditionalinternet-connected equipment such as personal computers, telephonesystems, security systems, gaming systems, and over-the-top (OTT)streaming media players, to newer “Internet of Things (IoT)” equipmentincluding “smart home” devices such as connected appliances, utilities,lights, switches, power outlets, and speakers, as well as wearabledevices such as watches and/or health monitors, among countless otherexamples.

A typical customer premises would have a wide area network (WAN)connection with the internet as well as a local area network (LAN)through which on-premises devices such as those noted above could engagein internet communication over the WAN connection. For instance, thecustomer premises could be equipped with a cable, satellite, cellular,or other WAN modem configured to connect with an associated head end(e.g., cable or satellite head end or cellular core network) that wouldprovide WAN internet connectivity, and the modem could include or becoupled with a router that would provide LAN connectivity for theon-premises devices, to allow the devices to engage in internetcommunications through the WAN connection.

With this arrangement, when the WAN modem is initially powered on, theWAN modem may register its presence with the head end, and the head endmay assign to the modem a globally-routable Internet Protocol (IP)address, or the modem may have a statically-assigned globally-routableIP address. Further, as each on-premises devices is initially powered onand in communication with the router, the device may likewise registerits presence with the router, and the router may assign to the device alocally-routable IP address, or the device may have astatically-assigned locally-routable IP address (local IP address). Eachsuch on-premises device may then engage in internet communicationsthrough the router, modem, and WAN connection, with the routerperforming standard network address translation between the device'slocal IP address and the modem's global IP address.

In practice, the internet-connected devices at such customer premisesmay often engage in internet communication with remote network systems.For example, each of various OTT streaming media players at the customerpremises may engage in internet communication with media serversoperated by an OTT provider (e.g., virtual multichannel videoprogramming distributor (virtual MVPD)), a security system at thecustomer premises may engage in internet communication with a centralmonitoring service, and IoT devices may engage in internet communicationwith various associated service providers, among numerous otherpossibilities.

The present disclosure provides for leveraging the connected nature ofsuch customer premises to help assist in responding to an emergencyevent at the customer premises. More particularly, the disclosureprovides for responding to prediction of an emergency event bydynamically provisioning and causing equipment at customer premises tocollect and report context information that may help to facilitateemergency response.

In accordance with the disclosure, a cloud-based prediction system couldpredict that a given customer premises will be impacted by an emergencyevent, such as a significant weather and/or natural-disaster event, atan upcoming time. In response to the prediction and before the upcomingtime, the cloud-based prediction system could then signal to equipmentat the customer premises to cause the equipment to collect and reportcontext information, such as a count of people at the customer premisesand/or a status of various utilities and/or other systems at thecustomer premises.

The cloud-based prediction system could predict that the customerpremises will be impacted by the emergency event in various ways. Tobegin with, the cloud-based system could learn of the upcomingemergency, perhaps by regularly polling or subscribing to be notified byemergency alert services such as the National Weather Service forinstance, which could inform the cloud-based system of an area and/orlocation trajectory of the upcoming emergency event, possiblyencompassing a location of the customer premises.

Further, to predict that the upcoming emergency will impact the customerpremises, the cloud-based system could use crowd-sourcing, taking intoaccount records that the emergency event has already impacted variousother customer premises in the area, possibly along a locationtrajectory headed toward the location of the customer premises.

Without limitation, one form of impact of the emergency event may beloss of internet connectivity at or around the time of the emergencyevent. Thus, if the cloud-based system is in regular internetcommunication with at least one device in each of various customerpremises in the area, the cloud-based system could determine that thatcommunication with some number of customer premises in the area has beenlost at or around the predicted time of the emergency, possibly on arolling basis moving toward the location of the customer premises atissue, and the cloud-based system could conclude from that informationthat the customer premises at issue is also likely to lose its internetconnectivity as a result of the predicted emergency event. Other formsof emergency impact and predictions of impact could be possible as well.

In response to predicting that the customer premises will be impacted bythe upcoming emergency event, the cloud-based system could thendynamically provision equipment at the customer premises to collect andreport context information that may help to facilitate emergencyresponse.

By way of example, the cloud-based system could signal to the equipmentat the customer premises to cause the equipment to determine and reporton-premises context information determined before, during, and/or afterthe emergency impact. This context information could include, forinstance, the number of people present at the customer premises (e.g.,per floor, room, or other area within the customer premises, perhapsalong with per-person demographic information) and/or the status ofvarious utilities and/or other systems at the customer premises.Proactively provisioning the customer premises equipment (before theemergency impact) to collect and report such information before, during,and/or after emergency impact may help to facilitate emergency response.For instance, if the equipment reports after the emergency impact thatthere are a certain number of people at the customer premises, emergencyresponders may use that information as a basis to rescue or otherwiseassist those people. Further, if the equipment system reports pre-impactcontext information and post-impact context information, then emergencyresponders may be able to assist given knowledge of the change incontext possibly resulting from the emergency impact.

In an example implementation, if there are multiple internet-connecteddevices at the customer premises, the cloud-based system could select aparticular one of those devices to coordinate this collecting andreporting. For instance, in response to predicting that the customerpremises will be impacted by the emergency event, the cloud-based systemcould select a given one of the devices to be the coordinating devicebased on the device having the most memory and/or processing power ofthe various connected devices at the customer premises. The cloud-basedsystem could then signal to that coordinating device, providing thedevice with a request for the context information as noted above andwith other information and/or logic to enable the device to do so, andthe device could then respond accordingly. The coordinating device maythen collect some of the requested information itself, using varioussensors or the like, and/or the coordinating device may engage insignaling with one or more other devices at the customer premises tocause the one or more other devices to collect some of the requestedinformation and to provide the coordinating device with the information.And the coordinating device may then the report the collectedinformation to the cloud-based system or other entity to help facilitateemergency response.

As a practical example of this process, the cloud-based system maypredict that an earthquake, hurricane, fire, or other natural disasterwill occur at the location of the customer premises. Further, thecloud-based system may determine based on records of lost communicationwith one or more other customer premises in the area that the customerpremises at issue will soon lose its internet connectivity. In response,the cloud-based system may then select a coordinating device at thecustomer premises and provision that device to collect and report countsof the number of people present at the customer premises both before andafter the predicted natural-disaster impact. The coordinating device maythen work with one or more other devices at the customer premises tocollect the context information before the predicted impact and maystore that information. Further, the coordinating device may also storelogic that causes the coordinating device to similarly collect thecontext information after the predicted impact—such as after a loss andrestoration of internet connectivity and/or after a loss and restorationof power. And the coordinating device may then report this contextinformation to the cloud-based system or other entity to help facilitateemergency response.

These as well as other aspects, advantages, and alternatives will becomeapparent to those of ordinary skill in the art by reading the followingdetailed description, with reference where appropriate to theaccompanying drawings. Further, it should be understood that thedescriptions provided in this summary and below are intended toillustrate the invention by way of example only and not by way oflimitation.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is a simplified block diagram of an example system in whichdisclosed features can be implemented.

FIG. 2 is a flow chart depicting an example method that can be carriedout in accordance with the disclosure.

FIG. 3 is a message flow diagram depicting an example method that can becarried out in accordance with the disclosure.

FIG. 4 is a simplified block diagram illustrating an example arrangementincluding multiple customer premises, with emergency event impactprogressing along a trajectory from customer premises to customerpremises.

FIG. 5 is a flow chart depicting an example method that can be carriedout in accordance with the disclosure.

FIG. 6 is a flow chart depicting an example method that can be carriedout in accordance with the disclosure.

FIG. 7 is a simplified block diagram of a computing system or deviceoperable in accordance with the disclosure.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Referring to the drawings, as noted above, FIG. 1 is a simplified blockdiagram of an example system in which the various disclosed featurescould be implemented. It will be understood, however, that this andother arrangements and processes described herein can take various otherforms. For instance, elements and operations can be re-ordered,distributed, replicated, combined, omitted, added, or otherwisemodified. Further, it will be understood that functions described hereinas being carried out by one or more entities could be implemented byand/or on behalf of those entities, through hardware, firmware, and/orsoftware, such as by one or more processing units executing programinstructions or the like.

As shown in FIG. 1 , the example system includes a representativecustomer premises 100 and a cloud-based computing system 102,communicatively linked together by a WAN 104 such as the internet.

In particular, the example customer premises is shown including a LAN106 having a router/modem 108 in communication with an ISP 110 thatprovides connectivity with the WAN 104, and the cloud-based computingsystem 102 is shown sitting as a node on or otherwise accessible via theWAN 104. Further, shown sitting as nodes on the LAN 106 at the customerpremises 100 are a number of on-premises computing devices 112.

As noted above, with this arrangement, the ISP 110 could assign to therouter/modem 108 and thus to the customer premises 100 a global IPaddress routable on the WAN 104, and the router/modem 108 could assignrespectively to each of the various on-premises computing devices 112 alocal IP address routable on the LAN 106. Further, the cloud-basedcomputing system 102 could also have a global IP address routable on theWAN 104. Thus, the various on-premises computing devices 112 may engagein network communication with the cloud-based computing system 102, withpacket traffic flowing via the router/modem 108, the ISP 110, and theWAN 104, and with the router/modem 108 performing network addresstranslation between the devices' local IP addresses and the customerpremises' assigned global IP address.

In an example implementation, the customer premises 100 could take anyof various forms, examples of which include without limitation a home,an office, a hotel, a dorm, a section (e.g., floor, room, or wing) ofsuch facilities, a combination of multiple such facilities (e.g., amulti-building campus or the like), or another place where one or moreon-premises devices could operate as described herein.

Further, the on-premises computing devices 112 could take any of variousforms as well, including but not limited to those noted above—such aspersonal computers, telephone system equipment, security systemequipment, gaming system equipment, OTT streaming media players, smarthome devices, and wearable devices.

Each one or more such on-premises computing devices 112 could beconfigured to carry out various device operations described herein. Forinstance, each device could include one or more processors (e.g., one ormore microprocessors and/or specialized processors), non-transitory datastorage (e.g., one or more volatile and/or non-volatile storagecomponents such as magnetic, optical, or flash storage), and programinstructions stored in the non-transitory data storage and executable bythe one or more processors to carry out the disclosed device operations.Further, each of one or more such devices 112 could includecommunication circuitry such as a wired and/or wireless Ethernet moduleand associated software, to enable the device 112 to engage incommunication on the LAN 106 and in turn with entities on the WAN 104such as with the cloud-based computing system 102.

In addition, one or more of the on-premises computing devices 112 couldbe configured to operate alone or in combination with one or more otherof the on-premises computing devices 112 to collect and report contextinformation like that described above. For example, to facilitatedetermining how many people are actively present at the customerpremises 100, one or more of the on-premises computing devices 112 couldinclude or be in communication with one or more motion-sensors, cameras,and/or other technology to scan and/or monitor the environment withinthe customer-premises using various known people-detection techniques todetect the presence of people and to determine the number of peopleactively present, such as the number of people moving at the customerpremises. As another example, to facilitate determining the operationalstate of one or more utilities at the customer premises, one or more ofthe on-premises computing devices 112 could include or be incommunication with one or more utility sensors configured to sense andreport that information. Other examples are possible as well.

Each of the one or more on-premises computing devices 112 could have apermanent or semi-permanent hardware address, such as a Media AccessControl (MAC) address, that uniquely identifies the device 112 on theLAN 106, and the router/modem 108 could store a mapping between eachdevice's assigned local IP address and the device's unique hardwareaddress. With this arrangement, a given such device 112 that knows thehardware address of another such device 112 may be able to determine thelocal IP address of that other device 112 by sending to the router/modem108 a standard address-resolution-protocol (ARP) query and receiving aresponse that specifies the local IP address associated with the otherdevice's hardware address.

Further, each of the devices 112 may have an associated set ofcapabilities data that defines various configuration and capabilities ofthe device, such as the device's data storage capacity and processingspeed and whether the device is capable of determining and reportingcontext information such as that noted above, as well as what type ofsuch context information the device is capable of determining andreporting, for instance. This capabilities data per device could bestored in data storage of the device at the time of manufacture of thedevice and/or at another time. Further or alternatively, thecapabilities data per device could be stored in the cloud-basedcomputing system 102 in association with the device's hardware address,among other possibilities.

The cloud-based computing system 102 could in turn comprise one or moreservers and/or other computing platforms configured to interact with oneor more of the on-premises computing devices 112 at least to facilitatethe presently disclosed operations.

In a non-limiting example, the cloud-based computing system 102 could beprovided and operated by a company that also provides various ones ofthe on-premises computing devices 112 and/or that provides software orother logic executable by those devices 112, to facilitate communicationbetween those devices and the cloud-based computing system as presentlycontemplated.

For example, the cloud-based computing system 102 may be operated by anOTT provider, and the on-premises computing devices 112 may include oneor more OTT streaming media players provided by that OTT provider and/orone or more smart-home and/or IoT devices provided by that OTT provider,and/or may be programmed or otherwise equipped with logic provided bythat OTT provider to facilitates interaction between those devices andthe OTT provider. As another example, the cloud-based computing system102 may be operated by a security-system provider, and one or more ofthe on-premises computing devices 112 may be security system componentsprovided by that security-system provider and/or other devices equippedwith logic provided by that security-system provider.

The cloud-based computing system 102 could include one or moremicroprocessors and/or specialized processors), non-transitory datastorage (e.g., one or more volatile and/or non-volatile storagecomponents such as magnetic, optical, or flash storage), and programinstructions stored in the non-transitory data storage and executable bythe one or more processors to carry out various disclosed cloud-basedcomputing system operations. Further, the cloud-based computing system102 could include communication circuitry, such as a wired and/orwireless Ethernet module, and associated software that enables thecloud-based computing system 102 to engage in communication on the WAN104 and in turn with devices 112 at the customer premises 100.

The cloud-based computing system 102 may have a static IP address and/ormay be accessible at a defined WAN domain, such as at a defineduniversal resource locator (URL) address for instance. And each of theon-premises computing devices 112 may be pre-provisioned with thataddress information to facilitate initiating communication with thecloud-based computing system 102.

As further shown in FIG. 1 , the cloud-based computing system 102 maystore or otherwise have access to customer-premises profile data 114.This customer-premises profile data 114 could include a variety ofinformation about customer premises 100. For instance, the profile data114 could include a street address and/or other geographic location ofthe customer premises 100, an identification of each of the one or moreon-premises computing devices 112 at the customer premises 100, andcapabilities data for each such on-premises computing device 112.

The cloud-based computing system 102 could accumulate some or all ofthis profile data based on registration signaling from the on-premisescomputing devices 112 or in any of a variety of other ways.

For instance, as each on-premises computing device 112 powers on andobtains network connectivity, the device 112 may transmit to the addressof the cloud-based computing system 102 a registration request thatcarries various data regarding the device 112, such as the device'sunique hardware address, the device's local IP address, and the device'scapabilities data. This request would flow over the WAN 104 as packetdata designating the global IP address of the customer premises 100 asthe source IP address and the global IP address of the cloud-basedcomputing system 102 as the destination IP address.

Upon receipt of this request, the cloud-based computing system 102 couldthus extract from the request and store a record of the on-premisescomputing device's identity (e.g., hardware address) and capabilitiesdata. Further, the cloud-based computing system 102 could perform astandard lookup keyed to the source IP address to determine the physicalstreet address or other geographic location where the on-premisescomputing device 112 is located and could record that address/locationin association with the identified on-premises computing device 112.Alternatively, the cloud-based computing system could determine thephysical address of the on-premises computing device in other ways, suchas based on WiFi service set identifiers (SSIDs) detected and reportedby the on-premises computing device 112, among other possibilities, andcould likewise store that data.

For each of multiple such on-premises computing devices 112 located atthe same customer premises 100, the cloud-based computing system 102could thereby associate the devices 112 with each other based on theirhaving the same associated customer-premises address/location.Therefore, the cloud-based computing system could establish as thecustomer-premises profile data 114 for a given such customer premises100 a set of data that identifies one or more such on-premises computingdevices 112 located at that customer premises, along with the hardwareaddress and capabilities data respectively of each such device 112.

In an example implementation, each such on-premises computing device 112may also be in regular communication with the cloud-based computingsystem 102.

For example, each such device 112 may be configured to periodicallytransmit to the cloud-based computing system 102 a heartbeat messagesuch as a predefined message that the cloud-based computing system 102is configured to treat as an indication that the device 112 is activelyonline. This heartbeat message could be a hypertext transfer protocol(HTTP) message or the like to which the cloud-based computing system 102may be configured to respond with a response message that the device 112is in turn configured to treat as an indication that it is actively incommunication with the cloud-based computing system 102 and that mayalso carry other useful information from the cloud-based computingsystem 102 to the device 112.

Alternatively or additionally, each such device 112 may engage insignaling with the cloud-based computing system 102 to establish atransmission control port (TCP) socket defining an open communicationchannel between the device 112 and the cloud-based computing system 102,and the device 112 and cloud-based computing system may take steps tomaintain that TCP socket, to facilitate quick communication between thedevice 112 and cloud-based computing system 102 when desired.

As further shown in FIG. 1 , also sitting as a node on or otherwiseaccessible via the WAN 104 is an emergency prediction system 116. Thisemergency prediction system 116 could comprise any system that iscapable of predicting and/or reporting prediction of an approachingemergency event, such as a significant weather and/or natural-disaster,or another emergency event whether or not nature related.

Without limitation, an emergency event could be a situation that posesan immediate risk to health, life, safety, property or environment andmay require urgent assistance to help prevent further illness, injury,death, or other worsening of the situation. For instance, the emergencyevent may be an earthquake, typhoon, or hurricane. Thus, the emergencyprediction system 116 may be a computing system provided by a governmententity, such as the United States Geological Survey (USGS) or theNational Weather Service (NWS), among other possibilities. Such a system116 may work autonomously and/or with human input to regularly monitorfor and predict when and where emergency events will occur (e.g., whenan emergency event is predicted to start at a location or move to alocation) and perhaps how long such emergency events are predicted tolast per location.

In an example implementation, the cloud-based computing system 102 couldsubscribe to the emergency prediction system 116 to be notified by theemergency prediction system 116 of predicted emergency events. When theemergency prediction system 116 predicts that an emergency event willoccur at a particular location/area, the emergency prediction system 116may then automatically transmit a notification message via WAN 104 tothe cloud-based computing system 102, informing the cloud-basedcomputing system of the predicted emergency event, the geographiclocation where the emergency event is predicted to occur, a time of daywhen the emergency event is predicted to occur at that location, andperhaps how long the emergency event is predicted to last at thatlocation.

As presently contemplated, when the cloud-based computing system 102receives such a notification message from the emergency predictionsystem 116, the cloud-based computing system 102 could read thenotification message to determine the predicted location and time of theemergency event, and the cloud-based computing system 102 could thenrefer to the customer-premises profile data 114 to identify customerpremises 100 as customer premises where the emergency event is predictedto occur. For instance, the cloud-based computing system could comparethe location of the customer premises 100 indicated by thecustomer-premises profile data with the predicted location of theemergency event indicated by the notification message from the emergencypredication system 116 and, upon or in response to finding that thoselocations overlap or are within a predetermined short distance of eachother, could conclude that the emergency is predicted to occur at andthus impact the location of the customer premises 100 at the predictedtime.

In response to determining in this or another manner that an emergencyevent is predicted to occur at the location of the customer premises 100at an upcoming predicted time, the cloud-based computing system 102could then proceed as noted above, to cause one or more on-premisescomputing devices 112 at the customer premises 100 to collect and reportcontext information that may assist in responding to the predictedemergency event.

By way of example, the cloud-based computing system 102 may responsivelyrefer to the customer premises profile data 114 to determine theidentity and capabilities of each of one or more on-premises computingdevices 112 at the customer premises 100 and may then transmit to eachof one or more such devices 112 one or more messages to which the device112 is configured to respond by collecting and reporting such contextinformation. Further, this could be based on a subscription model,where, through user input or other means, an on-premises computingdevice 112 subscribes to the cloud-based computing system 102 toparticipate in this process for certain types of emergency events or foremergency events generally. For instance, the registration messagingnoted above could establish this subscription. Thus, the cloud-basedcomputing system 102 may transmit the one or more messages to anon-premises computing device 112 based on the device 112 being at thecustomer premises 100 at issue and having subscribed to participate inthis process.

The cloud-based computing system 102 could transmit at least some suchmessage(s) to each such device 112 before the predicted time of theemergency event. For instance, the cloud-based computing system 102could determine the predicted time of the emergency event and couldselect a time to send the message(s) to the on-premises computingdevice(s) 112 based on the selected time being before the predicted timeof the emergency event. Thus, each such on-premises computing device 112could receive the message(s) before the predicted time of the emergencyevent. Further, the cloud-based computing system 102 could transmit oneor more such messages to one or more such on-premises computing devices112 after the predicted time of the emergency event.

The message(s) that the cloud-based computing system 102 sends to agiven such on-premises computing device 112 could be interpretable bythe device 112 to cause the device 112 to collect context information atone or more times, such as shortly before the predicted time of theemergency event, at or during the predicted time of the emergency event,and/or after the predicted time of the emergency event, and toresponsively report the collected context information to the cloud-basedcomputing system 102 or to another designated system/address. As notedabove, having an on-premises computing device 112 report contextinformation collected at multiple such times in relation to the time ofthe predicted emergency event may help in emergency response,particularly if the context information collected shortly before theemergency event differs from the context information collected shortlyafter the emergency event.

For instance, the cloud-based computing system 102 could specify in themessage(s) to the device 112 one or more such times when the device 112should collect the context information, in a manner to which the device112 would respond accordingly by collecting the context information ateach of the specified one or more times. Further, the cloud-basedcomputing system 102 could specify in the message(s) one or more timeswhen the device 112 should report the collected context information,with an associated indication of time(s)-collected. For instance, thecloud-based computing system 102 could specify in the message(s) thatthe device 112 is to report the collected context information uponcollecting the information or as soon as possible after collecting theinformation.

In addition, the message(s) that the cloud-based computing system 102sends to a given such on-premises computing device 112 could specifywhat context information the device 112 should collect and report. Forinstance, the cloud-based computing system 102 could specify in a mannerinterpretable by the device 112 that the device 112 should collect andreport a count of people actively present at the customer premises 100,the operational state of one or more utilities at the customer premises,and/or other context information.

The cloud-based computing system 102 could refer to the capabilitiesdata of the device 112 to determine what type(s) of context informationthe device 112 is capable of collecting and reporting and could requestthe device 112 to collect and report such context information, and thedevice 112 may responsively collect and report the indicated contextinformation. Alternatively, the message(s) to the device 112 may moregenerally request collecting and reporting of context information, andthe device 112 may responsively collect and report whatever contextinformation the device 112 is capable of collecting and reporting.

Further, the message(s) that the cloud-based computing system 102 sendsto a given such on-premises computing device 112 could specify where thedevice 112 is to report collected context information. For instance, themessage(s) could specify that the device 112 is to responsively reportthe collected context information to the cloud-based computing system102. Alternatively or additionally, the message(s) could specify an IPaddress, URL, or other address of an emergency-response system 118(e.g., police, fire, or other first-responder system) to which thedevice 112 is to report the collected context information perhaps withan HTTP POST message or the like.

As noted above, one way that the cloud-based computing system 102 couldcause an on-premises computing device 112 to collect and report contextinformation is for the cloud-based computing system 102 to provision theon-premises computing device 112 with program instructions or the likeexecutable by the device 112 to collect and report the contextinformation. For instance, in a scenario where the device 112 is notalready configured with program logic that is executable by the device112 to collect and report the context information in response to one ormore messages from the cloud-based computing system 102, the cloud-basedcomputing system could include such executable logic (e.g., an applet,script, or other program logic) in one or more messages to the device112. The device 112 could thus receive that logic from the cloud-basedcomputing system 102 and could self-install and then execute the logicto proceed accordingly with collecting and reporting context informationas requested.

Furthermore, as noted above, in an implementation where there aremultiple on-premises computing devices 112 at the customer premises 100where the emergency event is predicted to occur, the cloud-basedcomputing system 102 may select one or more of the devices 112 tocoordinate and/or carry out the collection and reporting of contextinformation from the customer premises 100. The cloud-based computingsystem could select an on-premises computing device 112 for this purposebased on consideration of the capabilities data of the multipleon-premises computing devices 112 at the customer premises 100.

For example, if the cloud-based computing system 102 seeks collectionand reporting of a particular type of context information, such as oneof those noted above for instance, the cloud-based computing systemcould select one of the multiple devices 112 at the customer premisesbased on the capabilities data of that device 112 indicating that thedevice 112 is capable of collecting and reporting that particular typeof context information.

As another example, the cloud-based computing system 102 could selectone of the multiple devices 112 at the customer premises to coordinatethe collection and reporting of context information, with the selectionbeing based on one or more configuration properties of the device 112 asindicated by the device's capabilities data. For instance, thecloud-based computing system 102 could select one of the devices 112 tobe the coordinating device based on the device's storage capacity,processor speed, power type (e.g., whether the device has a backup powersource, etc.), by comparison with such configuration properties of oneor more other of the multiple devices 112 at the customer premises 100.By way of example, the cloud-based computing system 102 could select adevice 112 based on it having at least predefined threshold large datastorage capacity and/or predefined threshold high processor speed, amongother possibilities.

Once the cloud-based computing system 102 selects an on-premisescomputing device 112 to be the coordinating device, the cloud-basedcomputing system 102 could provision that selected device 112 to be thecoordinating device for collecting and reporting context information.

For instance, the cloud-based computing system 102 could transmit tothat device 112 the one or more messages as discussed above, which couldcause the device 112 to collect and report context information.

Further, through the one or more messages or otherwise, the cloud-basedcomputing system 102 could provision the device 112 with informationand/or logic that enables and causes the device 112 to coordinatecollection of context information by multiple devices 112 at thecustomer premises 100 and to report that collected context information.For instance, the cloud-based computing system 102 could transmit to thecoordinating device a list of one or more other on-premises computingdevices 112 at the customer premises 100, to enable the coordinatingdevice to engage in LAN communication with one or more such otherdevices 112, to request and receive context information from each suchother device 112.

By way of example, the cloud-based computing system 102 could refer tothe customer-premises profile data 114 to determine the unique hardwareaddress and/or local IP address of each such other device 112 and thecapabilities data of each such other device 112, and the cloud-basedcomputing system 102 could then transmit to the coordinating device alist of each such other device 112 along with the other device'shardware address and/or local IP address and the other device'scapabilities data. If the cloud-based computing system 102 specifies thehardware address of any given such other device 112, the coordinatingdevice may then be able to translate that hardware address to a local IPaddress of the other device 112 by sending an ARP request to therouter/modem 108 as noted above.

Upon receipt of this information and any associated logic from thecloud-based computing system 102, the coordinating device could thenengage in local processing to collect context information from each suchone or more other devices 112 at the customer premises 100, tofacilitate reporting the context information. For example, thecoordinating device could transmit via LAN 106 to the local IP addressrespectively of each such other device 112 a request for the otherdevice to collect and report to the coordinating device contextinformation at one or more designated times, also possibly provisioningthe other device 112 with logic executable by the other device 112 to doso. Each such other device 112 could then responsively collect contextinformation as requested and report that context information to thecoordinating device, and the coordinating device could report thatcontext information in turn as requested by the cloud-based computingsystem 102.

With the various processes described above, after the cloud-basedcomputing system 102 requests one or more on-premises computing devices112 to collect and report context information in view of a predictedemergency event at the location of the customer premises 100, there is achance that the customer premises 100 would lose its WAN connectivitybefore the requested device(s) 112 can responsively report the contextinformation as requested. This loss of WAN connectivity could be animpact of the emergency event. For instance, a severe weather and/ornatural disaster event or other emergency event may disconnect theconnection between the router/modem 108 and the ISP 110, or another suchloss of WAN connectivity may occur.

Optimally even with this loss of WAN connectivity, the one or moreon-premises computing devices 112 may still proceed to collect contextinformation as requested, at the one or more times requested such asbefore, during, and/or after the predicted time of the emergency event.The device(s) 112 could then retain the collected context informationuntil the WAN connectivity is restored. And in response to restorationof the WAN connectivity, the device(s) could then report he collectedcontext information as requested.

In addition, after the cloud-based computing system 102 requests the oneor more on-premises computing devices 112 to collect and report contextinformation in view of the predicted emergency event, there is a chancethat the customer premises 100 would lose power before the requesteddevice(s) 112 can responsively report the context information asrequested. This loss of power could also be an impact of the emergencyevent. For instance, a severe weather and/or natural disaster event orother emergency event may disconnect the customer premises' connectionwith a local electrical power grid.

If this happens, any battery-powered on-premises computing devices 112may continue to process the request for collecting context information.Further, one or more such on-premises computing devices 112 may storetheir state in non-volatile memory and may continue to respond to therequest after power to the customer premises 100 is restored.

FIG. 2 is next a flow chart depicting an example method that could becarried out in accordance with the present disclosure. As shown in FIG.3 , at block 200, the method could include a cloud-based computingsystem determining that an emergency event is predicted to impact acustomer premises at an upcoming time. And at block 202, the methodcould include, responsive to the determining and before the upcomingtime, the cloud-based computing system causing one or more on-premisescomputing devices at the customer premises to collect and report contextinformation. For instance, as discussed above, the causing of the one ormore on-premises computing devices at the customer premises to collectand report context information could involve transmitting from thecloud-based computing system to the one or more on-premises computingdevices one or more messages interpretable by the one or moreon-premises computing devices to cause the one or more on-premisescomputing devices to collect and report the context information.

In line with the discussion above, the emergency event could comprise aweather and/or natural-disaster event. Further, the context informationcould comprise information such as a number of people present at thecustomer premises and/or an operational status of one or more utilitiesor other systems at the customer premises.

In addition, as discussed above, the act of the cloud-based computingsystem determining that the emergency event is predicted to impact thecustomer premises at the upcoming time could involve the cloud-basedcomputing system receiving from an emergency-prediction system anotification that the emergency event is predicted to occur at alocation, and the cloud-based computing system determining that thelocation where the emergency event is predicted to occur correspondswith a location of the customer premises.

Further, the method could involve the cloud-based computing systemreceiving, from at least one of the one or more on-premises computingdevices at the customer premises, information indicating the location ofthe customer premises. And in that case, the act of determining by thecloud-based computing system that the location where the emergency eventis predicted to occur corresponds with a location of the customerpremises could involve the cloud-based computing system comparing thelocation where the emergency event is predicted to occur with theindicated location of the customer premises and thereby determining thatthe location of where the emergency event is predicted to occur overlapswith or is within a predefined short distance of the indicated locationof the customer premises.

As further discussed above, the act of the cloud-based computing systemcausing one or more on-premises computing devices at the customerpremises to collect and report context information could involvespecifying in the one or more messages one or more times when the atleast one on-premises computing device is to collect the contextinformation, with each of the one or more times being defined inrelation to the upcoming time when the emergency event is predicted tooccur. Thus, in an example implementation, the context information couldinclude context information as of before the predicted emergency eventimpacts the customer premises and context information as of after thepredicted emergency event impacts the customer premises, among otherpossibilities.

In addition, as discussed above, the act of the cloud-based computingsystem causing one or more on-premises computing devices at the customerpremises to collect and report context information could involveproviding at least one of the one or more on-premises computing deviceswith a set of program logic executable by the at least one on-premisescomputing device to cause the at least one on-premises computing deviceto collect and report the context information.

Further, as discussed above, where there are multiple on-premisescomputing devices at the customer premises, the method couldadditionally involve the cloud-based computing system selecting a givenone of the multiple on-premises computing devices to be a coordinatingdevice (e.g., with the selecting being based on capabilities data of thegiven device), and the cloud-based computing system causing thatselected device to coordinate the collecting and reporting of thecontext information. For instance, the cloud-based computing systemcould provide the selected device with an indication of one or moreother on-premises computing devices at the customer premises, to enablethe selected device to engage in signaling with each other indicatedon-premises computing device to obtain context information collected bythe indicated on-premises computing device.

FIG. 3 is next a message flow diagram depicting an example method thatcould be carried out in accordance with the present disclosure. FIG. 3depicts at its top various entities that could participate in the methodin line with the discussion above. Namely, the figure depicts one ormore on-premises computing devices 112 (at particular customerpremises), the cloud-based computing system 102, theemergency-prediction system 116, and the emergency response system 118.

As shown in FIG. 3 , at step 300, the one or more on-premises computingdevices 112 register with the cloud-based computing system 102. Asdiscussed above, for instance, each on-premises computing device 112 maytransmit a registration message to the cloud-based computing system 102,providing the cloud-based computing system with profile data such ascapabilities data, a local IP address, and a unique hardware address,among other possibilities. Upon receipt of this registration message,the cloud-based computing system 102 may then store the profile data asnoted above. Further, at step 302, the cloud-based computing system 102may determine the location (e.g., street address) of each suchon-premises computing device 112 and may determine that multiple suchregistered on-premises computing devices 112 are located at a commongeographic location, such as at a common customer premises, and thecloud-based computing system 102 may store the device locationinformation for later reference.

At step 304, the cloud-based computing system 102 may then receive fromthe emergency prediction system 116 a notification of a predictedemergency event along with an indication of location and time of thepredicted emergency. For instance, as noted above, the cloud-basedcomputing system 102 may have subscribed to be notified by the emergencyprediction system 116 of such predicted emergencies, and the emergencyprediction system 116 may therefore notify the cloud-based computingsystem based on that subscription.

At step 306, the cloud-based computing system may then determine whatcustomer premises will be impacted by the predicted emergency event andidentify one or more on-premises computing devices 112 at that customerpremises. For instance, as discussed above, the cloud-based computingsystem may compare the location of the predicted emergency event withthe locations of various customer premises having one or more registeredon-premises computing devices 112 and may determine based on thatcomparison that the location of given customer premises corresponds withthe location of the predicted emergency event.

At step 308, the cloud-based computing system 102 may then send one ormore messages to the identified one or more on-premises computingdevices 112 at the determined customer premises, to cause the one ormore on-premises computing devices 112 to collect and report contextinformation. For instance, as noted above, the cloud-based computingsystem 102 may reach out to individual such devices 112 to cause them todo so and/or may select a device 112 to be a coordinating device and mayreach out to the selected coordinating device to cause it to coordinatethe process. Optimally as discussed above, the cloud-based computingsystem 102 could send one or more such directives to the on-premisescomputing devices before the time of the predicted emergency event 310.

In response, the one or more on-premises computing devices 112 may thencollect context information (e.g., whether one or more people arepresent, and/or the status of one or more utility monitors or the like)and report the collected context information to the emergency responsesystem 118. As noted above, this collecting and reporting of contextinformation could occur at various times in relation to the predictedemergency event 310. For instance, at step 312, the device(s) couldcollect some such context information before the time of the predictedemergency event 310, at step 314, the device(s) could collect some suchcontext information at the time of the predicted emergency event 310,and/or at step 320, the device(s) could collect some such contextinformation after the time of the predicted emergency event,timestamping the various collected information. Further, at step 318,the device(s) could report any context information collected as ofbefore the time of the predicted emergency event 310, at step 320, thedevice(s) could report (e.g., incrementally) any context informationcollected as of the time of the predicted emergency event 310, and atstep 322, the device(s) could report (e.g., incrementally), any contextinformation collected as of after the time of the predicted emergencyevent 310.

Accordingly, in line with the discussion above, the cloud-basedcomputing system 102 could request one or more on-premises computingdevices 112 at representative customer premises 100 to collect andreport context information in view of a prediction that the emergencyevent will impact the customer premises 100.

As noted above, this prediction could be based on information from theemergency-prediction system 116 establishing that the emergency event ispredicted to occur at a location of the customer premises 100. Inaddition, as noted above, the prediction that the customer premises 100will be impacted by the emergency event could involve use ofcrowdsourcing to predict that the customer premises will be so impacted.

By way of example, if the emergency-prediction system 116 providesnotification that an emergency event will occur in a given locationarea, such as a given city, campus, or zip-code area, the cloud-basedcomputing system 102 could then use crowdsourcing to detect that theemergency event is causing impact along a trajectory headed toward thecustomer premises and thus to predict that the customer premises 100within that location area will be impacted by the emergency event.

FIG. 4 illustrates an example such scenario. As shown in FIG. 4 , arepresentative location area 400 where the emergency event is predictedto occur includes multiple customer premises 402 a-i, each of which maycontain one or more on-premises computing devices registered and incommunication with the cloud-based computing system 102 as discussedabove. As such, the cloud-based computing system 102 may have access toinformation indicating the geographic location respectively of each suchcustomer premises 402.

Once the cloud-based computing system 102 receives notificationindicating that an emergency event is predicted to occur in locationarea 400, the cloud-based computing system 102 may then responsivelystart monitoring for impact of the emergency event at the variouscustomer premises 402 in that area. One form of impact that thecloud-based computing system 102 could monitor for is loss of WANconnectivity with the customer premises, which might be a result of theemergency event. The cloud-based computing system 102 could detect lossof WAN connectivity with any given customer premises 402 by detectingabsence of expected heartbeat messages or the like from one or moreon-premises computing devices 112 at the customer premises.

Through this monitoring, the cloud-based computing system 102 maythereby detect a progressive loss of WAN connectivity of multiplecustomer premises 402 along a trajectory leading toward given customerpremises. For instance, as shown by the dashed arrow in FIG. 4 , thecloud-based computing system 102 may detect loss of WAN connectivityprogressively at customer premises 402 h, then customer premises 402 g,and then customer premises 402 d. Considering the geographic trajectoryof these losses, the cloud-based computing system 102 could thereforepredict that customer premises 402 a will soon lose its WAN connectivitytoo, as a possible impact of the emergency event. And in response tothis prediction that customer premises 402 a will be so impacted by theemergency event, optimally before that impact occurs, the cloud-basedcomputing system 102 could then proceed as noted above to cause one ormore on-premises computing devices 112 at that customer premises 402 ato collect and report context information.

Note also that other forms of emergency-event impact and monitoring forprogressive impact could be possible as well, possibly depending on thetype of emergency. For example, if the emergency is an earthquake, oneway to detect that impact of the emergency at each of various customerpremises could be for one or more vibration sensor at the customerpremises to detect strong vibration and to report that detectedvibration to the cloud-based computing system 102. As another example,if the emergency is a flood, one way to detect the impact of theemergency at each of various customer premises could be for one or morewater sensors at the customer premises to detect water and to reportthat detected water to the cloud-based computing system 102. As yetanother example, if the emergency is a fire, one way to detect the firecould be for one or more smoke or heat sensors at the customer premisesto detect smoke or heat and to report the detected smoke or heat to thecloud-based computing system 102. Other examples could be possible aswell.

FIG. 5 is next a flow chart depicting an example method that could becarried out accordingly, making use of crowdsourcing. As shown in FIG. 5, at block 500, a computing system could receive a notification of apredicted emergency event in a location area that includes multiplecustomer premises. At block 502, the computing system could thenresponsively monitor for impact of the emergency event at variouscustomer premises in the location area. At block 504, based on thatmonitoring indicating impact at multiple customer premises, thecomputing system could identify a geographic trajectory of the emergencyimpact.

At block 506, as to each of various customer premises, the computingsystem could determine whether the emergency impact on the identifiedtrajectory is headed toward the customer premises. If the computingsystem determines that the emergency impact on the identified trajectoryis headed toward given customer premises (e.g., first customerpremises), then, at block 508, the computing system could responsivelytake action with respect to that customer premises, such as causing oneor more devices at the customer premises to collect and report contextinformation. Whereas, if the computing system determines that theemergency impact on the identified trajectory is not headed toward givencustomer premises (e.g., second customer premises), then, at block 510,the computing system could forgo from taking the action with respect tothat customer premises.

While the above discussion has focused on implementation where customerpremises communicate with the cloud-based computing system via a WANsuch as the internet for instance, that the features described couldapply in other scenarios as well. For instance, in a hotel, campus,metropolis, or the like that encompasses various customer premises suchas rooms, floors, buildings, or the like, and that has a LAN or othernetwork that serves each of those customer premises, a cloud-basedcomputing system like that described above could be provided on that LANto serve the on-premises computing devices in each such customerpremises.

By way of example, a hotel having many guest rooms that each contain oneor more on-premises computing devices may also implement a cloud-basedcomputing system as described above. The hotel's cloud-based computingsystem may then learn of an emergency event that is predicted to impactone or more such customer premises at an upcoming time and, in responseto that prediction, may signal to one or more on-premises computingdevices in a given such customer premises to cause the device(s) tocollect and report context information, which may assist in respondingto the emergency event.

The context information collected and reported as described herein mayenable first responders and/or other emergency-response personnel totake appropriate action to assist in responding to the emergency event.For example, information indicating the number of people activelypresent at the impacted customer premises before, during, and/or afterthe predicted time of the emergency event may enable response personnelto rescue or otherwise assist the one or more people present. As anotherexample, information indicating the state of one or more utilities orother systems at the customer premises before, during, and/or after thepredicted time of the emergency event may enable response personnel todispatch service to repair or otherwise address those systems.

As noted above, one or more on-premises computing devices may reportthis context information to the cloud-based computing system or toanother designated address such as an address of an emergency responsesystem 118. To the extent one or more on-premises computing devicesreport such information to the cloud-based computing system, thecloud-based computing system could then in turn forward that informationalong to the emergency-response system 118 to help facilitate responseto the emergency event.

Note also that, in addition to causing one or more on-premises computingdevices 112 to collect and report context information in view of apredicted emergency event, or as an alternative to doing so, thecloud-based computing system 102 could cause one or more on-premisescomputing devices 112 to take one or more other useful actions in viewof the predicted emergency event. For instance, the cloud-basedcomputing system 102 could send to the one or more on-premises computingdevices 112 a list of actions that the one or more on-premises computingdevices 112 should carry out possibly in addition to reporting andcollecting context information, and the one or more on-premisescomputing devices 112 could responsively carry out the listed actions.Examples of such actions could include sounding a siren and/or otheraudible alert, turning on and possibly flashing a light and/or othervisual alert, recording video and/or audio, and transmitting one or moreemergency-alert messages, among other possibilities.

FIG. 6 illustrates an example method that could be carried outaccordingly. As shown in FIG. 6 , at block 600, a cloud-based computingsystem could determine that an emergency event is predicted to impactcustomer premises at an upcoming time. At block 602, responsive to thethat determination, and before the upcoming time, the cloud-basedcomputing system could transmit to one or more devices at the customerpremises one or more messages listing one or more actions to be taken,such as collecting and reporting context information, sounding a siren,lighting a light, and/or sending or presenting another other alert,among other possibilities). And at block 604, one or more devices at thecustomer premises could receive the one or more messages andresponsively carry out the one or more listed actions.

FIG. 7 is next a simplified block diagram illustrating components of acomputing system or device operable in the processes described above.The example arrangement shown in FIG. 7 could represent the cloud-basedcomputing system or an on-premises computing device, among otherpossibilities. As shown in FIG. 7 , the example arrangement includes anetwork communication interface 700, a processor 702, and non-transitorydata storage 704, communicatively linked together by a system bus orother connection mechanism 706. Further, the example arrangement mayinclude other components. For instance, various on-premises computingdevices may include sensors such as cameras, microphones, motionsensors, among other possibilities, to facilitate collecting of contextinformation.

Network communication interface 700 could comprise one or more wiredand/or wireless network communication modules along with associateddrivers and/or other logic, to enable communication over a network suchas a LAN or WAN. Processor 702 could comprise one or more generalpurpose processors (e.g., microprocessors) and/or one or morespecial-purpose processors (e.g., application specific integratedcircuits or digital signal processors). And non-transitory data storage704 could comprise one or more volatile and/or non-volatile storagecomponents such as magnetic, optical, or flash storage, among otherpossibilities. As further shown, data storage 704 could hold programinstructions 708, which could be executable by the processor 702 tocarry out various operations described herein.

Further, the present disclosure also contemplates one or morenon-transitory computer-readable media encoded with, embodying, orotherwise storing program instructions executable by a processor (e.g.,one or more processors) to carry out various operations as describedherein.

Exemplary embodiments have been described above. Those skilled in theart will understand, however, that changes and modifications may be madeto these embodiments without departing from the true scope and spirit ofthe invention.

What is claimed is:
 1. A method comprising: determining by a cloud-basedcomputing system that an emergency event is predicted to impact acustomer premises at an upcoming time; and responsive to the determiningand before the upcoming time, causing by the cloud-based computingsystem one or more on-premises computing devices at the customerpremises to collect and report context information, wherein causing theone or more on-premises computing devices at the customer premises tocollect and report context information comprises (i) transmitting fromthe cloud-based computing system to the one or more on-premisescomputing devices one or more messages interpretable by the one or moreon-premises computing devices to cause the one or more on-premisescomputing devices to collect and report the context information and (ii)specifying in the one or more messages one or more times when the one ormore on-premises computing devices should collect the contextinformation, wherein each of the one or more times is defined inrelation to the upcoming time when the emergency event is predicted tooccur, and wherein the context information comprises informationselected from the group consisting of (i) a number of people present atthe customer premises and (ii) an operational status of one or moreutilities or other systems at the customer premises.
 2. The method ofclaim 1, wherein the emergency event comprises a weather and/ornatural-disaster event.
 3. The method of claim 1, wherein determining bythe cloud-based computing system that the emergency event is predictedto impact the customer premises at the upcoming time comprises:receiving by the cloud-based computing system from anemergency-prediction system a notification that the emergency event ispredicted to occur at a location; and determining by the cloud-basedcomputing system that the location where the emergency event ispredicted to occur corresponds with a location of the customer premises.4. The method of claim 3, further comprising receiving by thecloud-based computing system, from at least one of the one or moreon-premises computing devices at the customer premises, informationindicating the location of the customer premises, wherein determining bythe cloud-based computing system that the location where the emergencyevent is predicted to occur corresponds with a location of the customerpremises comprises comparing by the cloud-based computing system thelocation where the emergency event is predicted to occur with theindicated location of the customer premises and thereby determining thatthe location of where the emergency event is predicted to occur overlapswith or is within a predefined short distance of the indicated locationof the customer premises.
 5. The method of claim 1, wherein the one ormore times includes at least one time that is during the upcoming timewhen the emergency event is predicted to occur or after the upcomingtime when the emergency event is predicted to occur.
 6. The method ofclaim 1, wherein the context information comprises context informationas of before the predicted emergency event impacts the customer premisesand context information as of after the predicted emergency eventimpacts the customer premises.
 7. The method of claim 1, wherein causingby the cloud-based computing system one or more on-premises computingdevices at the customer premises to collect and report contextinformation comprises providing at least one of the one or moreon-premises computing devices with a set of program logic executable bythe at least one on-premises computing device to cause the at least oneon-premises computing device to collect and report the contextinformation.
 8. The method of claim 1, wherein there are multipleon-premises computing devices at the customer premises, the methodfurther comprising: selecting by the cloud-based computing system agiven one of the multiple on-premises computing devices to be acoordinating device, and causing by the cloud-based computing system theselected device to coordinate the collecting and reporting of thecontext information.
 9. The method of claim 8, wherein causing by thecloud-based computing system the selected device to coordinate thecollecting and reporting of the context information comprises providingthe selected device with an indication of one or more other on-premisescomputing devices at the customer premises, to enable the selecteddevice to engage in signaling with each other indicated on-premisescomputing device to obtain context information collected by theindicated on-premises computing device.
 10. The method of claim 8,wherein selecting the given device to be the coordinating device isbased on capabilities data of the given device.
 11. A computing systemcomprising: a network communication interface; a processor;non-transitory data storage; and program instructions stored in thenon-transitory data storage and executable by the processor to carry outoperations comprising: determining that an emergency event is predictedto impact a customer premises at an upcoming time, and responsive to thedetermining and before the upcoming time, causing one or moreon-premises computing devices at the customer premises to collect andreport context information, wherein causing the one or more on-premisescomputing devices at the customer premises to collect and report contextinformation comprises (i) transmitting through the network communicationinterface to the one or more on-premises computing devices one or moremessages interpretable by the one or more on-premises computing devicesto cause the one or more on-premises computing devices to collect andreport the context information and (ii) specifying in the one or moremessages one or more times when the one or more one on-premisescomputing devices should collect the context information, wherein eachof the one or more times is defined in relation to the upcoming timewhen the emergency event is predicted to occur, and wherein the contextinformation comprises information selected from the group consisting of(i) a number of people present at the customer premises and (ii) anoperational status of one or more utilities or other systems at thecustomer premises.
 12. The computing system of claim 11, wherein thecomputing system is cloud-based and located remotely from the customerpremises.
 13. The computing system of claim 11, wherein the emergencyevent comprises a weather and/or natural-disaster event.
 14. Thecomputing system of claim 11, wherein determining that the emergencyevent is predicted to impact the customer premises at the upcoming timecomprises: receiving from an emergency-prediction system a notificationthat the emergency event is predicted to occur at a location; anddetermining that the location where the emergency event is predicted tooccur corresponds with a location of the customer premises.
 15. Thecomputing system of claim 11, wherein the one or more times includes atleast one time that is during the upcoming time when the emergency eventis predicted to occur or after the upcoming time when the emergencyevent is predicted to occur.
 16. The computing system of claim 11,wherein the context information comprises context information as ofbefore the predicted emergency event impacts the customer premises andcontext information as of after the predicted emergency event impactsthe customer premises.
 17. The computing system of claim 11, whereincausing one or more on-premises computing devices at the customerpremises to collect and report context information comprises providingthe one or more on-premises computing devices with a set of programlogic executable by the at least one on-premises computing device tocause the at least one on-premises computing device to collect andreport the context information.
 18. The computing system of claim 11,wherein there are multiple on-premises computing devices at the customerpremises, the operations further comprising: selecting a given one ofthe multiple on-premises computing devices to be a coordinating device,and causing the selected device to coordinate the collecting andreporting of the context information, wherein causing the selecteddevice to coordinate the collecting and reporting of the contextinformation comprises providing the selected device with an indicationof one or more other on-premises computing devices at the customerpremises, to enable the selected device to engage in signalingrespectively with each other indicated on-premises computing device toobtain context information collected by the indicated on-premisescomputing device.
 19. A non-transitory computer-readable medium havingstored thereon program instructions executable by a processor to carryout operations comprising: determining that an emergency event ispredicted to impact a customer premises at an upcoming time; andresponsive to the determining and before the upcoming time, causing oneor more on-premises computing devices at the customer premises tocollect and report context information, wherein causing the one or moreon-premises computing devices at the customer premises to collect andreport context information comprises (i) transmitting to the one or moreon-premises computing devices one or more messages interpretable by theone or more on-premises computing devices to cause the one or moreon-premises computing devices to collect and report the contextinformation and (ii) specifying in the one or more messages one or moretimes when the one or more one on-premises computing devices shouldcollect the context information, wherein each of the one or more timesis defined in relation to the upcoming time when the emergency event ispredicted to occur, and wherein the context information comprisesinformation selected from the group consisting of (i) a number of peoplepresent at the customer premises and (ii) an operational status of oneor more utilities or other systems at the customer premises.